


Hooked

by snowbellewells



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 02:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowbellewells/pseuds/snowbellewells
Summary: Post 3a midseason finale drabble; Surely there is no way she could ever forget him... Is there?





	Hooked

Bringing this little post-3a drabble over from ff.net as well, per reader request. 

"Hooked" by snowbellewells

Though she has tried to fight it – to deny that Fate could be this cruel – the moment has come all too quickly. Everything is jumbled, panicked, happening too fast for her to catch her breath or respond as she would like. They learned only moments before that imminent disaster is bearing down on them, and already Emma has had to jump into action without the benefit of time to reconcile her emotions. Looking around at the first true friends she has ever made and the parents she had always wished for, it seems impossible that she is about to leave them all behind.

But then her eyes find Killian’s, and she wants to scream at Regina, Pan, Rumplestiltskin, anyone whose power and twisted intent has moved her like a cosmic chess piece her entire life. The unfairness of it almost staggers her. She has only just found this man, just begun to allow him past her walls. Now is when the fun was supposed to begin… She can hardly breathe, the pain is so sudden and unexpected; as though someone striking her square in the chest and rendering her unable to draw air.

She watches Henry say goodbye to Neal, watches him cling to Regina for a moment, still strikingly young for all his maturity and all that he has survived. It brings quick tears to Emma’s eyes to see him comfort the Evil Queen, whose own grief runs unashamedly down her cheeks. It is one of the few times Emma has truly seen through Regina’s impeccable veneer. Henry is all the woman has; for her to give him up to Emma in his best interest makes Emma both feel for Regina and respect her in a way that she has not thought possible until this very moment.

Then, it seems like time skips and leaps forward again. They can see flickers of light and billows of green smoke creeping inexorably toward them. Snow urges her gently, a maternal hand smoothing her hair one last time as Emma’s eyes fall closed to savor the fleeting comfort. I should have always had this, she thinks with bitter longing. How am I supposed to give it up now?

“Emma, you have to go!” Mary Margaret reminds her anxiously, somehow keeping her voice relatively bright, focused on the task at hand, though the pain in darkening her eyes shows all too clearly.

Killian stands back a bit further, just behind her family. And though he gives no outward sign, Emma can sense his body acutely attuned to hers, almost imperceptibly leaning forward, aching to hold her just as she wishes she could run to him and hide from this parting. He has already given her all the comfort he has to offer. “Not a day will go by I won’t think of you…” still echoes in her head, but she wants more, needs more, and won’t let herself ask for it. There should be more time for her stunted emotions to catch up; he stirs something in her that makes her want to feel again, despite the possible cost.

From the moment he had emerged from that pile of bodies in the refugee village and their eyes met, Killian Jones has been climbing her walls. He has pushed with stubborn affection, playful flirtation, and actually coming back for her, until she depends on him in spite of herself. He has pestered and proved his way into her trust. He kept after her…and now she needs him. It is only when Emma has to quit him that she sees he is an addiction she can’t admit. He has hooked her at last; she should have known that the moment she gave in would be the moment he would be pulled away from her.

All the tiny tokens of his affection – gestures she has been starving for all her life – flash through her mind in the next few moments. Offering his rum when he knows she is pained or troubled, backing her up without question, touching a strand of her hair as if it is priceless gold and then tucking it behind her ear, that one open, aching, hungry kiss and the way he had leaned into her desperate for another, the way he reads all she can’t say behind her eyes “like an open book”, the winks, the smirks, the arched eyebrow...they all ensnare her as she tries to make an escape. It is only for love of Henry that she is able to pull away.

Emma starts to move slowly, unwilling to turn her back on this rag tag band of survivors she is leaving behind. Now even Henry has turned and is getting into the passenger side of the car, but Emma can’t make herself take that last step, lose these people who will soon go back to being stories, not people she remembers, knows…loves.

Killian’s eyes hold hers once more over the space between them. He has backed up further yet, to allow her mother to kiss her forehead, her father to cradle the back of her head in his large palm one last time - to give them their fleeting last moments with her, so they can say their goodbyes once more to the beloved daughter they keep having to let go, but the expression on his face draws her eyes to him all the same. Blue and yearning, drowning her in regret, but in hope as well – it is almost as though he’s still touching her across the distance, with only his longing gaze. ‘I’ll be here, Love. We’ll find a way,’ it seems to whisper as a caress on her skin, ‘I won’t forget, and I will find you again…’

Somehow, she is able to believe in him, if nothing and no one else. Before she realizes she has moved, she is getting into the car and putting it in drive. In the rearview mirror, she sees Regina raising her hands, sending purple magic up to meet the green cloud rolling in on those left behind. One last glance at Killian shows him standing stoically; still staring after her with heartbreak, but determination too that bolsters her courage. His is the last face she sees as they are all swallowed up in the billows of purple-y ether and she begins to drive.

He has captured her – snagged her heart – and she has no choice but to trust that he won’t let go. Just before she and Henry cross the town line, the smoke right on their tail, she can’t help thinking, ‘There is no way I’ll forget him…’


End file.
